Kathmandu. The three districts of the valley require three thousand megawatts of electricity when electricity is consumed for two hours a day. It has been mentioned that the people of the valley consume this electricity while cooking food in induction stoves.

Executive Director of the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre Narayan Adhikari said this during the climate conference organized in Kathmandu. Highlighting the activities of the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre at a discussion organized on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Conference (COP31) of the Development, Economic Affairs and Good Governance Committee, he said the target was to provide clean stoves to 1 million households at 150 local levels in Tarai within the next three years.

With the support of Green Climate Fund (GCF), about one lakh clean stoves have been distributed so far and the tender process for distributing additional two lakh stoves has started.

For the formulation and implementation of energy plans at the local level, technologies such as biogas, improved and electric stoves are being promoted in the hilly districts through the ‘Municipal Energy Plan’. A model project of electric bio-energy burners under the ‘Fuel Switching’ program to reduce the use of mineral fuels, financial assistance is being provided by KfW, Asian Development Bank and the World Bank as per the renewable energy subsidy policy to provide electricity to the deprived households of Karnali, Far-western and eastern hilly districts for ‘last mile electrification’ in remote areas. The central government will contribute 90 percent of the financial assistance for the project and the local level will contribute 10 percent.

More work is being done in the field of waste-to-energy production. At present, programs related to waste management and biogas production are being conducted in 19 local levels with a capacity of about 1,000 tonnes per day. A full financial proposal has been submitted for the project of about five million US dollars in GCF.

If the proposal is approved, around 1,100 tons of waste will be managed daily in 12 municipalities of Nepal.